Radar

Real-time noise radar implemented with Vivace

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Martin Ankel

Martin Ankel

industrial PhD student at SAAB and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

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Testimonial

Summary

The Challenge: Implementing a real-time noise radar system requires processing high-bandwidth signals with zero downtime. The researchers needed a platform capable of handling a 100% duty cycle while integrating custom processing logic to detect UAVs at distances of several kilometers. The Solution: Vivace provided the FPGA flexibility required to deploy custom noise radar processing code. This allowed the team to achieve a 200 MHz bandwidth and a 268 ms integration time, successfully demonstrating a processing range of 8.5 km for their TRL 7 demonstration.
Figure 1

Real-time noise radar measurement setup. The 'brain' of the radar is Vivace. It generates the noise signal that is transmitted via the tx antenna and gets reflected off of the UAV. The reflected signal is received by the rx antenna, then amplified and filtered by the analog receiver board to be sampled and analyzed in real-time by Vivace. The analyzed data reveals the distance and velocity of the UAV, which is visualized on a computer.

Real-time noise radar implemented with Vivace

Q: Hi Martin, can you tell us about your position and the scope of your project at SAAB and Chalmers?
A: I am an industrial PhD student supervised by Prof. Per Delsing, Prof. Lars Ulander, and Dr. Tomas Bryllert. My research focuses on the practical implementation of a noise radar system. The ultimate aim is to construct a high-bandwidth bistatic noise radar system that operates in real-time.

Q: What is the target benchmark for this system?
A: We are aiming for a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 demonstration. Specifically, we want to detect an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at a range of several kilometers.

Q: How did the Vivace platform fit into your experimental setup?
A: Vivace has been an integral part of several proof-of-concept experiments. Its standout feature is the easy implementation of custom FPGA code, which, combined with excellent support from IMP, made it perfectly suitable for implementing an FPGA-based noise radar processor.

Q: Can you share the specific performance metrics you achieved with the real-time processor?
A: Thanks to Vivace, we implemented a real-time noise radar processor capable of operating with:

  • A 100% duty cycle
  • 200 MHz bandwidth
  • 268 ms integration time
  • Processing a range of about 8.5 km

Q: You mentioned that the current system faces challenges with "masking effects." How do you plan to solve that?
A: The masking effect currently limits our detection range. We believe we can solve this by moving to a bistatic system configuration. We plan to utilize all of Vivace's available channels to perform spatial filtering to mitigate the interference.

Q: Based on these results, would you recommend Vivace for radar applications?
A: Absolutely. In conclusion, Vivace has been an indispensable asset in implementing the real-time noise radar. I would highly recommend Vivace and IMP to anyone.

*Vivace has been discontinued. Presto is a great replacement instrument.

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